The Open Studio / Rakesh
Rakesh
Accumulated Grounds
A wall of earth where the flowers still hold on
Brown crust rises like a wall after rain.
Pink flowers cling to it in small torn bits.
Above, blue squares of sky sit behind a grid.
Grey paint runs down and does not stop.
A pale shape leans on a thin red stem.
At the bottom, a row of small white marks holds the ground in place.
The work
Accumulated Grounds starts from Rakesh's childhood in a village in Madhya Pradesh, among mud houses and fields. It also draws on his life in an informal settlement in New Delhi, where people repair and rebuild their space all the time. He works with materials such as mud, sand, husk and found objects. He does not use them for nostalgia. He wants them to carry "the physical qualities of the environments from which they emerge." Here the surface is thick and rough, like dried ground.
In the artist’s words
“I am interested in the experiences that disappear as environments are transformed through development, ecological change and human intervention. I use mud, sand, husk and found objects not as symbols of nostalgia but as active elements. Rather than representing landscapes, I construct situations in which viewers can move through, sense and reflect on changing relationships between people and their environments.”
- Theme
- Spaces becoming unfamiliar
- Material
- Mixed media
- Size
- 61 × 61 cm
- Year
- 2026
- Edition
- -
- Framed
- No
- About the artist
- Sarojini Naidu School Of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad
- From
- New Delhi
- Code
- RC-388
